344 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
the country in large measure, especially of the districts con tiguous to the cities, but less and less so as one moves far ther away from the great urban centres. The fact is that rural districts are being progressively suburbanized. Ex cellent roads are being built; vehicles of every description improved; trolley-lines and telephone wires extended into remote sections ; and up-to-date methods of heating and light ing installed in residences. Along with this trend the primeval wilderness is giving way to intensively cultivated fields and scientifically cultivated forests. The whole as pect of the country has been changed by human effort, and the original natural environment has been highly artificial- ized even in remote rural districts.
If we reflect upon the rapid growth of cities, the extend ing influence of the cities upon the country, the general increase in the density of the population, and the rapid rate at which all the conditions of life, even in the country, are being artificialized i.e., humanly organized and controlled, we may safely conclude that the modern city-bred man most nearly represents the trend of human development in this age. Into the study of this type and the conditions under which it is developed let us go somewhat in detail.
I. First, as to the environmental conditions.
In the city a man has comparatively little contact with nature in any of its original forms. He does not walk on Mother Earth. His vision does not range over the rolling hills, nor penetrate the shadowy recesses of the forest. His ears are assaulted by a deafening complex of all the dis cordant noises with which his own stormy energy has been able to break the primeval silence. He sees little of the sky, which is hidden behind his heaven climbing walls and even when glimpsed is darkened by the smoke, which looks like an angry but ineffectual protest of nature against his im pertinent disturbance of her ancient quietude. And while he thus obscures the day, he illuminates the night with the obtrusive glare of the electric lamps, which make the modest moon, Nature s invention, look pale and abashed. Of
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